Under the hot copper shield of an African sun, clouds of white and grey smoke rose over the battle field of Ulundi: the massed crash of British Imperial infantry rifle fire was decimating the ranks of Cetshwayo's Zulu Army of twenty thousand warriors. Wave after wave of Zulu might flowed against the bulwark of Imperial infantry, only to be drive back by the combined forces of rifle, machine gun and artillery fire. As the smoke rose into the different sky on that July day of 1879, the hopes of the Zulu nation for independence from Imperial rule went with it, dissipating into the realm of what-might-have-been.